A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for the analysis of an object, preferably of a document of value, using optical radiation, in particular an apparatus for the illumination of an object and/or an apparatus for the capture of an image of a document of value.
B. Related Art
In this context, documents of value are understood to mean sheet-shaped objects, which represent for example a monetary value or an authorization and thus shall not be producible at will by unauthorized persons. Therefore, they have features not easy to manufacture, in particular to copy, whose presence is an indication of the authenticity, i.e. the manufacturing by a body authorized thereto. Examples of such documents of value are chip cards, coupons, vouchers, checks and in particular bank notes.
For analysing objects, in particular documents of value, there are frequently employed optical sensors which capture in locally resolved fashion optical properties of an object to be analysed and for this purpose illuminate with an illumination apparatus strip-shaped regions on the object at least partly with optical radiation and image them onto a substantially line-shaped field of receiving elements of an image capturing apparatus of the sensor. The receiving elements form, in dependence on the radiation falling thereon, receive signals which together represent an image of the respective region of the object. Through motion of the object transversely to the direction of the line or strip and through sequential capture of such images during the motion past the sensor, a two-dimensional image of the object can be captured or recorded. Optical radiation according to the invention is understood to be electromagnetic radiation in the infrared, visible or ultraviolet wavelength range. The components described in the following need not be configured for a use in the entire optical spectral range, rather, a configuration in one spectral range, specified for example by the nature of the object or the desired analysis, within the optical spectral range is sufficient.